Former CU Buff Thompson find redemption at Sunrise stampede

LONGMONT -- Before Thursday, Christian Thompson had no idea the Sunrise Stampede was coming up.

By mid-morning on Saturday, Thompson was the Stampede champion.

The 23-year-old Thompson, who completed his career at the University of Colorado last month, finished the 10K race in 31 minutes, 38 seconds at Longmont High School.

"I just wanted to run and win and I got that, so it's good," Thompson said.

Thompson topped Curtis Begley of Boulder to win the 27th Annual Sunrise Stampede by 22 seconds. Lanni Marchant of White, Ga., won the women's race. Colleen De Reuck of Boulder was second.

On May 24, Thompson ran his last collegiate race, placing 23rd in the 10K at the NCAA West Preliminaries in Austin, Texas. It wasn't exactly how he wanted to go out.

"My NCAA season didn't end how I wanted it to, and I felt like if I ended it after regionals I would have wasted a lot of fitness," said Thompson, who is from Candor, N.Y. "I was pretty happy with today's race and how it all went. It was nice to kind of redeem myself a little. It's not on the same stage, but it's still nice."

Thompson works at Fleet Feet in Boulder and found out about the Stampede while working a shift on Thursday. In past years, he might not have entertained the thought of running.

"Usually when I get to this point of the season, I'm like, 'Thank God it's over with,'" he said. "I get mentally burnt out. This year I had so much more fun. I worked as hard as I ever did, but I just relaxed a lot more.

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"I was working my shift on Thursday and I was like, 'That would be perfect.' Races are much better than workouts.

The Stampede gave Thompson a chance to get the competitive juices flowing again. It also offered him a chance to run a road race for the first time since his junior year of high school. This was his first-ever win in a road race.

"The best win I've ever had was probably Stanford in the 5K (on April 29)," he said. "This definitely means a lot, too, just to kind of get back to winning."

Thompson is now eyeing a pro career and hopes to keep up the pace he's setting right now.

"This definitely is a good step in the right direction," he said.

Saturday's win was a good step for Marchant, too. She has been in Boulder County since mid-May in an effort to train at altitude. On May 28, she finished 11th in the Bolder Boulder women's elite race, running for Team Canada.

At the Stampede, she won by 1:19 over second-place De Reuck.

"My plan was just to go out in the front, in the top three, and just hold my place," she said. "When I went out and I was in the lead, I guess I had to stick to that decision and just hold my place."

Marchant didn't fully commit to running the Stampede until Friday night, and it wasn't her greatest performance, she said.

"I felt a little flat," she said. "This is a high-mileage week for me, so I didn't quite feel as quick as I'd like."

Still, it was a rather productive month in Boulder County for one of Canada's top women's distance runners. Marchant is now setting her sights on getting a spot on Canada's squad for the Olympics in London later this summer.

"It's going pretty well for me," she said. "I kind of want to keep the momentum up and just keep positive about running and keep injury free."

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